Pharmalot, Pharmalittle: We’re Reading About AbbVie, Gilead and Much More!!

By

Ed Silverman

Dec 22, 2014 8:04 am ET

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to an abbreviated working week. The holiday season is here, as you know, so our dispatches will peter out in a few days but for now, the world continues to spin. And so, we are engaging in our usual routine of brewing cups of stimulation and foraging for interesting items. Have one to share? Drop us a line. Meanwhile, time to get to work, or at least keep up on our busy world. Hope you have a nice day and do stay in touch…

Express Scripts, the largest pharmacy benefits manager in the U.S., will make the new AbbVie hepatitis C treatment as the exclusive option for patients with the most common form of the disease; Next week, Walgreen shareholders will vote on whether to complete a merger with Alliance Boots, transforming the U.S operator into a global player doing business in more than 10 countries and 11,000 locations, but the deal hardly looks like a takeover; and a disgraced Japanese researcher has failed to replicate results hailed as a potential breakthrough in stem-cell treatment and efforts to do so will be abandoned.